


there it is again (sitting on my chest)

by fulmentus



Category: Jane the Virgin (TV)
Genre: F/F, Light Angst, mentions of others - Freeform, the window deserves its own character tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 18:11:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14676606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fulmentus/pseuds/fulmentus
Summary: Because she locks her window now, refuses to open it. Hopes that the bars and the hefty lock will be enough to deter her from looking at it constantly.(It doesn’t work.)or, petra kinda hates windows now.





	there it is again (sitting on my chest)

**Author's Note:**

> super sloppy, i'm sorry.

The window is open.

It’s open, it’s open, it’s open. And Petra can’t — she can’t _stop_ looking at it. How the gentle breeze carries the drapes with it as it comes through.

It’s stupid. She shouldn’t be hung up over an open window.

(It’s not the window. She knows that, knows that deep down that it’s not the window that bothers her, that irks her — rubs her the wrong way.

Makes her skin itch.

No, it’s something else entirely.)

Her eyes flicker to that window constantly, unable to focus for more than minutes at a time before she’s drawn there again. To an open window with gently swaying curtains, a vacant windowsill, an opening that sunlight seeps through. A warmth she can’t seem to feel.

It’s a window.

(All she’s reminded of is Jane Ramos walking away. Of a window of texts that doesn’t blink with a new message any time soon.)

///

It’s ridiculous, Petra thinks, thoughts whirling, spiraling, anger at herself hot and tangled between her ribs, stitching her bones together.

Ridiculous how she can walk into her room, see the window open, and just… _stop._ Freeze in place, paralyzed by this one common occurrence. People open their windows all the time, leave them open to catch the wind. Filter stagnant air.

But Petra can’t think passed a flash of silver, the telltale click of a gun.

Can’t think passed Jane rushing in, saving her life. Passed Jane looking at her like… _that_ — brow pinched, curved downward, wretchedly beautiful even in that moment.

The air rushes out of her lungs as though she’s been punched, and Petra stumbles backward, unable to breathe, hands balled into tight fists, nails cutting crescents into her palms. Cracks webbing across her heart.

///

She has bars installed, and no one even dares to question her about it.

///

Empty beds and locked windows.

(Because she locks her window now, refuses to open it.

Hopes that the bars and the hefty lock will be enough to deter her from looking at it constantly.)

(It doesn’t work.)

Flitting gazes, blue eyes catching in the reflection of the glass. A shuddering breath, a tightness in her throat.

Petra stops sleeping in her room. Can’t bear waking up one more day in a bed far too large for one person. Not when just weeks prior a warm body occupied that space, made her feel safe, secure — _loved_.

She sits up in her office most nights, or watches the twins, shooing away nannies that look at her with a strange expression on their faces (Petra sees pity there, and she scoffs at it — hates the way it feels directed at her).

(She doesn’t want pity.

She wants… she wants…)

(An open window, a pleasant breeze. Warm hands entangled in her own, and dark, molten eyes that she used to watch the sun set in their depths.)

///

Ellie and Anna tug at her hands, her skirts, eyes wide and curious, and—

“Does JR not like us anymore?” Broken and wet and _hurt_. Her girls look up at her, blue eyes near identical to her own, glistening with tears.

And oh, Petra’s breath escapes her lungs again, a lump in her throat that she can’t quite seem to swallow. There’s a pressure against her ribs, pushing and pushing and pushing. She doesn’t know what to say to them, her brain working furiously to function properly and threatening give out entirely.

She bends down on wobbling knees, fights the burn in her throat and the sting in her eyes. “ _No,_ ” Petra breathes. “No, of course not.”

She runs a hand up each of their arms, eyes flickering between them. “She adores you, she’s just—” Petra swallows thickly, smile strained as she adds, “she’s just busy.”

And they seem consoled for the moment, and Petra sighs, a ragged breath expelling from her lips.

When she walks into her room, immediately fixing on the closed window, the barred glass, her heart aches, and she feels her chest splinter further.

///

Rafael notices because of course he notices. But every time he opens his mouth to say anything, Petra snaps at him.

Barbed tongue and equally barbed words aimed his way. _Shouldn’t you be fixing things with Jane?_ Her voice falters around the name, and she pushes it away, dismisses him from her office before he can say another word.

(And if she chokes on sobs later that night, knuckles white against the windowsill of a forcefully shut window, no one is around to witness it.)

///

It stays closed, the window. For all of the summer, months passing by in a blur of work and the girls and Rafael drama.

Jane Villanueva steps in and out of her life, worrying and fretting over Petra until Petra has enough and shoves her out.

“You need to work on your book,” Petra reminds her pointedly, sucking in a breath to soften her voice. “And work out the Michael problem.”

Jane nods, quiet and subdued. “Yeah, you’re right.”

Petra always is.

With everything but herself, apparently.

She glances at the window again, eyes narrowed and fingers tightening around her pen. Damn windows, she curses internally. Damn windows that remind her of everything that’s gone terribly, terribly _wrong._

///

There’s a knock on the door to her suite.

And Petra startles from inside her room, from beside a window she hasn’t opened in months, but here she is now, hands hesitantly pushing it upward, inviting the early autumn air in.

(It’s a monumental moment. Or rather, it _should_ be.

It feels like something new, like she’s overcome something even though she hasn’t really.

There is no milestone completed here, just a quiet acceptance from a texting window left unopened and untouched for quite some time, JR’s name returned to Jane Ramos a while ago.)

She lifts the window, opens it just a slight crack.

The knock comes again.

“ _All right_ ,” she barks, “I’m coming.”

She strides toward the door, steps quick and irritated, and when she opens it — oh god when she opens it — she doesn’t expect to see Jane Ramos standing there, hands stuffed in her pockets, a tiny quirk to her lips.

“Hey,” JR greets.

Petra blinks rapidly, feels her heartbeat accelerate, a damn traitor of an organ, pressing against her ribs, tiny spiderwebs of cracks mending themselves almost instantly, and oh, Petra hates herself for the flicker of hope she feels then.

“Hi,” she manages, unsteady.

Jane’s eyes flick between hers, still deep and still so brown, considering. She waves a hand over her shoulder. “Is it okay if I come in?”

Petra steps aside, opens the door a little wider, wordless as her pulse continues to trip over itself.

She glances to her bedroom, where the window is open for the first time in a long time, and she can’t help but wonder if it really is a milestone.

(She feels warmth on her skin, diffusing the coldness that burrowed deep into her marrow and thinks, oh maybe it is.)

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading :) catch me @fulmentus on tumblr if you wanna chat, or scream, or offer some prompts. or all, i don't mind.  
> title from: wish that you were here - florence + the machine


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